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The Sun is a daily tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and Ireland, founded
in 1964
A tabloid is a newspaper with compact page size smaller than broadsheet, although there is no
standard for the precise dimensions of the tabloid newspaper format. The term tabloid journalism,
along with the use of large pictures, tends to emphasize topics such as sensational crime stories,
astrology, celebrity gossip and television. However, some newspapers, such as The Independent and
The Times, are in tabloid format, and this size is used in the United Kingdom by nearly all local
newspapers. There, its page dimensions are roughly 430 mm 280 mm (16.9 in 11.0 in). In the
United States, it is commonly the format employed by alternative newspapers. Some small-format
papers which claim a higher standard of journalism refer to themselves as compact newspapers
instead.
Larger newspapers, traditionally associated with higher-quality journalism, are often called
broadsheets, and this designation often remains in common usage even if the newspaper moves to
printing on smaller pages, as many have in recent years. Thus the terms tabloid and broadsheet are,
in non-technical usage, today more descriptive of a newspaper's market position than its physical
size.
The Berliner format used by many prominent European newspapers is sized between the tabloid and
the broadsheet. In a newspaper context, the term Berliner is generally used only to describe size, not
to refer to other qualities of the publication.
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History
The word "tabloid" comes from the name given by the London based pharmaceutical company
Burroughs Wellcome & Co. to the compressed tablets they marketed as "Tabloid" pills in the late
1880s.[2] The connotation of tabloid was soon applied to other small compressed items. A 1902 item
in London's Westminister Gazette boasted, "The proprietor intends to give in tabloid form all the
news printed by other journals." Thus "tabloid journalism" in 1901 originally meant a paper that
condensed stories into a simplified, easily absorbed format. The term preceded the 1918 reference
to smaller sheet newspapers that contained the condensed stories.
1) Trace the four steps in the history of the word tabloid
Dimensions
A tabloid is defined as "roughly 17 by 11 inches (432 by 279 mm)" and commonly "half the size of
a broadsheet".
Types
Tabloid newspapers, especially in the United Kingdom, boast a very high degree of variation as far
as target market, political alignment, editorial style, and circulation are concerned. Thus, various
terms have been coined to describe the subtypes of this versatile paper format. There are, broadly,
two main types of tabloid newspaper: red top and compact. The distinction is largely of editorial
style; both red top and compact tabloids span the width of the political spectrum from socialism to
capitalist conservatism. Red top tabloids are so named due to their tendency, in British and
Commonwealth usage, to have their mastheads printed in red ink; the term compact was coined to
avoid the connotation of the word tabloid, which implies a red top tabloid, and has lent its name to
tabloid journalism, which is journalism after the fashion of red top reporters.
There are two distinct types of tabloid the red top and the compact.
1) What do they have in common?
2) What differences are there?
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one of Britain's most well-known tabloids, the Daily Mail, boasts a mostly female readership,
whereas that of The Morning Star, in keeping with its political leanings, is of trade unionists.
1) When did the broadsheets begin to change their format?
2) In what ways is The Morning Star exceptional?
3) Read the list of UK newspapers below what can you summarise
about their political alignment?
List of British tabloids
Red tops
Daily Star - Populist
Daily Mirror[4] - Labour
Daily Record - Labour
The Sun[4] - Conservative
Compacts/Broadsheets
Daily Mail- conservative
Daily Express - middle-market conservative
The Independent - Left wing
The Morning Star - middle-market socialist (in the tradition of Karl Marx)
The Scotsman - upmarket centrist
The Times - upmarket centrist
In Britain, three previously broadsheet daily newspapersThe Independent, The Times, and The
Scotsmanhave switched to tabloid size in recent years, and twoDaily Express and Daily Mail
in former years, although all of the above call the format "compact" to avoid the down-market
connotation of the word tabloid. Similarly, when referring to the down-market tabloid newspapers
the alternative term "red-top" (referring to their traditionally red-coloured mastheads) is
increasingly used, to distinguish them from the up- and middle-market compact newspapers. The
Morning Star also comes in tabloid format; however, it avoids celebrity stories, and instead favours
issues relating to labour unions.
1) What do the terms down-market, middle- and up-market refer to?
Broadsheets
places, and outside Britain the broadsheet developed for other reasons,
including style and authority, unrelated to the British tax structure.
The original purpose of the broadsheet, or broadside, was for the purpose of
posting royal proclamations, acts, and official notices. Eventually the people
began using the broadsheet as a source for political activism by reprinting
speeches, ballads or narrative songs originally performed by bards. With the
early mechanization of the 19th century came an increase in production of
printed materials including the broadside as well as the competing penny
dreadful*. In this period newspapers all over Europe began to print their issues
on broadsheets.
However, in the United Kingdom, the main competition for the broadside was
the gradual reduction of the newspaper tax, beginning in the 1830s, and
eventually its dismissal in 1855. With the increased production of newspapers
and literacy, the demand for visual reporting and journalists led to the blending
of broadsides and newspapers, creating the modern broadsheet newspaper.
Recently, with profit margins narrowing for newspapers in the wake of
competition from broadcast, cable television, and the internet, newspapers
have looked to standardize the size of the newsprint roll. The smaller
newspaper formats adopted also have the advantage of being easier to handle,
particularly among commuters.
1) Give two reasons for the birth of broadsheets
2) Describe their early history and purposes
3) What happened to make the broadside become the modern
broadsheet newspaper?
4) What has recently caused broadsheets to adopt a smaller format?
Connotations In some countries, especially Australia, Canada, the UK, and the
US, broadsheet newspapers are commonly perceived to be more intellectual in
content than their tabloid counterparts, using their greater size to examine
stories in more depth, while carrying less sensationalist and celebrity material.
This distinction is most obvious on the front page: whereas tabloids tend to
have a single story dominated by a headline, broadsheets allow two or more
stories to be displayed, the most important at the top of the page.
1) Describe the characteristic content of broadsheets
2) Look at the example of a (former, now compact) broadsheet on
page 6.
What are the usual features of a broadsheet?
* Penny dreadful is a pejorative term used to refer to cheap popular serial
literature produced during the nineteenth century and it typically referred to a
story published in weekly parts, each costing one (old) penny. The stories were
usually sensational, focusing on the exploits of detectives, criminals, or
supernatural entities. The term later encompassed a variety of publications
that featured cheap sensational fiction, They were printed on cheap pulp paper
and were aimed at young working class males. In some respects they were the
precursors of tabloid journalism
2)
http://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/history_today.html
bring to them. As long ago as 1908, Mahatma Gandhi said, in the context of colonial India: To give millions a
knowledge of English is to enslave them. Although most former British colonies retained English as an
official language after independence, some (e.g. Tanzania, Kenya, Malaysia) later deliberately rejected the
old colonial language as a legacy of oppression and subjugation, disestablishing English as even a joint
official language. Even today, there is a certain amount of resentment in some countries towards the cultural
dominance of English, and particularly of the USA.
10) What are the negative aspects connected to a global language?
11) How have some countries reacted to the adoption of English as their official language?
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parking, le shopping, le snaque-barre, le sweat, le marketing, cool, etc. are now firmly engrained in the
language.
13) How many English words are used in French? Is this a recent phenomenon?
There is a strong movement within France, under the stern leadership of the venerable Acadmie Franaise,
to reclaim French from this onslaught of anglicisms, and the country has even passed laws to discourage the
use of anglicisms and to protect its own language and culture. New French replacements for English words
are being encouraged, such as le logiciel instead of le soft (software), le disc audio-numrique instead of le
compact disc (CD), le baladeur instead of le walkman (portable music player), etc. In Qubec, the neologism
le clavardage (a portmanteau word combining clavier - keyboard - and bavardage - verbal chat) is becoming
popular as a replacement for the common anglicism le chat (in the sense of online chat rooms). Norway and
Brazil have recently adopted similar measure to keep English out, and this kind of lexical invasion in the form
of loanwords is seen by some as the thin end of the wedge, to be strenuously avoided in the interests of
national pride and cultural independence
14) In what ways have some countries reacted to the predominance of English?
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but by far the most commonly adopted was the Gold format, majoring on chart hits from the 1960s
and 70s. The overall number of stations increased dramatically as a result.
The 1990 Broadcasting Act decreed that all local VHF and MW services should be individually
licensed, replacing the single VHF / MW contract that had previously existed under the auspices
of the Independent Broadcasting Authority. Furthermore, the broadening choice criterion
contained in Section 105 of the Act meant that any company providing the same programming on
both wavebands in the same licence area would be vulnerable to challenges to their licences when
they came up for re-advertisement. This meant that, by 1995, there was virtually no simulcasting
still occurring in UK commercial radio.
In 1990, the IBA began to award licences for stations in areas already served by an existing
commercial station. The aim was to increase the range of programming available to listeners. Early
examples included Jazz FM and Kiss in London, designed to appeal to a different audience from
Capital or LBC.
In 1991, the Radio Authority replaced the IBA as the commercial radio regulator and followed a
policy of licensing stations to fill in the gaps in existing coverage, to offer smaller stations in areas
already covered by large commercial stations and to offer regional stations, which could extend the
range of programming available to audiences.
National commercial radio
National commercial radio began in 1992. Three stations were licensed, and their formats were, to
some extent, decreed by Parliament one had to offer music other than pop music, one had to have
at least 50% speech content. These stations were Classic FM, Talk Radio (now talkSPORT) and
Virgin Radio.
The general trend in regulation of commercial radio has been gradually to lessen the regulatory
burden on radio stations as the competition for revenues and the choice for listeners increases.
BBC expansion
Meanwhile BBC Radio has continued to expand since 1967: A fifth national network, BBC Radio 5
(now BBC Radio Five Live) was launched and BBC Local Radio continued to expand, together
with new stations for each of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
DAB Digital Radio
The BBC launched DAB digital radio in 1995, and now offers eleven UK-wide digital radio stations
(including five only available nationally on digital, and the World Service).
Since then, commercial operators have also made significant investments in digital radio. A national
commercial multiplex licence was awarded to Digital One in 1998. Digital One launched its first
national commercial services in 1999 and now offers eight services, including five available only on
digital. Local DAB commercial services are now available from 46 local DAB digital radio
multiplexes around the UK. Digital versions of the relevant BBC Local Radio or nations services
are also carried on the appropriate local commercial multiplex.
Source: Ofcom
http://www.mediastudentsbook.com/content/case-study-outline-history-tv-uk
dispute that saw both government and trade unions attempting to influence communications. On 1st
January 1927, the British Broadcasting Corporation was founded with a Royal Charter and granted
a licence to broadcast. The new corporation had a measure of independence from the state.
An experimental television service began in 1936. In the trial period two different technologies
were used but John Logie Bairds mechanical system was quickly dropped and an electronic 405
line system became standard. .
shared the audience on a roughly equal basis. From now on, the audience share of other
broadcasters would grow steadily, undermining the settled terrestrial broadcasting environment.
Analysing television history
Various commentators have found ways to analyse this history. John Ellis, one of the foremost
academic analysts of UK television (who has also worked within the industry), has represented the
history like this: the era of scarcity; the era of availability; the era of plenty.
Scarcity refers in most countries to the restricted number of channels available up to the late 1970s
(terrestrial broadcasts are limited by the availability of suitable bandwidths of radio waves). New
technologies such as broadband cable, DBS (direct broadcasting by satellite) and now digital freeto-air or DTT (digital terrestrial television) allowed the move to the era of availability by creating
space for many extra channels. In 2000 Ellis suggested television was moving towards a future that
was being promoted by producers and distributors, but which audiences were only coming to terms
with quite slowly.
In Elliss terms the producers and audiences have actually been working through an age of
uncertainty as television begins to redefine itself. We can see this in the refusal by a significant
section of the UK audience to buy in to the new world of plenty after a decade of promotion,
multi-channel television had penetrated, to use the market jargon, just over two-thirds of UK
households (TV International Database, reported in The Times 22/4/05). To the surprise of many
industry pundits, much of that growth had been via the Freeview service for terrestrial digital
channels. In other words, some of the new audiences for digital television had still to be convinced
that they need to pay extra for more channels. In the digital switchover currently underway in the
UK, the state has subsidised the move to digital for the minority not yet able to receive signals.
Freeview Created as a joint project between BBC, BSkyB and Crown Castle (the privatised exBBC transmitter group now Arqiva), Freeview was set up as a free DTT service when ITVs
ONDigital service failed in 2002. In June 2005 it had some 30 per cent of the digital market,
growing faster than BSkyB or cable by recruiting the refuseniks who wouldnt pay for digital
services. ITV had to buy extra channel space on the platform and in 2006, ITV and Channel 4
joined as equal shareholders. The Freeview model has since been exported to other countries. In
2008, BBC and ITV set up Freesat as an alternative platform for free digital television services.
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